


Rising Up to the Challenge of Our Rivals

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), Parks and Recreation
Genre: Crossovering Exchange, Crossovering Exchange 2017, Emetophobia, F/M, Non-Dystopian Future AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 20:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12175821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: Secret Service Agent Rosa Diaz's team are working with Madam President Leslie Knope on a very special assignment. It could get kind of gross. There might be mysterious figures involved. Disguises are almost certainly involved. This information is classified. But with these characters, the hijinks are inevitable.





	Rising Up to the Challenge of Our Rivals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stillscape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/gifts).



“Welcome to New York, Madam President,” Rosa says. She’s standing not at attention, but more at the ready, eyes constantly scanning the area for threats.

“It’s been waiting for you,” Jake adds helpfully.

Amy groans. “Peralta, could you please act like a grown man for once?” She _is_ standing at attention, but in the very special elbow-Jake-in-the-ribs-when-he-says-something-stupid alternative to saluting posture.

“Grown men are allowed to quote Taylor Swift.”

“Not around the President of the United States!”

“Can I quote the Presidents of the United States around the President of the United States?”

“I think,” says Rosa, “we should start from the top.”

* * *

Two hours and twenty from-the-tops later, Rosa’s finally semi-okay with how the members of the 99 look. No—no longer members of the 99, she has to remind herself. They put that behind themselves years ago. Now they’re part of the New York Secret Service office, and the President is coming to visit. Rosa hasn’t been given the itinerary yet—the risk of the details leaking is too high—but she’s prepared to provide protection at numerous crucial sites from the 9/11 memorial to the Statue of Liberty.

The agents from Washington will escort the President and the First Gentleman from Air Force One to a private lounge at JFK, where handover will take place and Rosa’s team will take them on to wherever their destination is. She’s been given to understand that this is more of a personal trip than a business one, but nothing beyond that.

“Plane’s landed,” says Charles, peering out of the window.

“Affirmative,” says Amy. “I have eyes on the Madam. The President! Madam President.”

“Please tell me your microphone wasn’t on just then,” says Rosa as Jake dissolves into a giggling fit.

“I’m going to not talk any more,” says Amy, contradicting herself a few seconds later with, “Oh, _sugar_.”

“What?”

Amy meets Rosa’s eyes, looking—is that _terror_? “They’ve brought their children.”

* * *

“President Leslie Knope; First Gentleman Ben Wyatt; Sonia, Stephen, and Wesley Knope-Wyatt,” the lead Washington agent recites.

“I have to _pee_ ,” Stephen informs the lounge at large.

“Agent Boyle, can you escort Master Stephen to the bathroom?” Rosa says, aware that midsentence she started sounding less Secret Service and more British butler. At least she didn’t say “lavatory”.

Charles takes the kid to the bathroom. It’s all of maybe fifteen feet away, but Rosa was a good Girl Scout and her motto is still _Be Prepared_.

That’s a lie. She was a shitty Girl Scout and her motto is _Be Armed_.

She turns her full attention to President Knope, who is staring at a potted plant in the corner of the lounge. “Welcome to New Y—”

“Is that a _soda can_ in that plant pot?”

Amy goes crimson and scuttles over to remove the offending object and drop it into the recycling container that’s literally right beside the plant pot. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I don’t know how that got there.” The look on her face suggests that if she had the time, she’d fingerprint the can and make an arrest.

“Honey, please,” the First Gentleman interjects. “Someone probably dropped it by accident.”

“Yeah, like how people drop _shopping carts_ in _rivers_ by accident. Wesley, get off the bar.” She doesn’t even turn to direct this last at her son, who is scaling the wet bar, focused on the pretty shiny tiny bottles. “Remember what we said happens if you don’t behave?”

“No cotton candy,” Sonia pipes up.

Rosa has a sinking feeling about where this is headed.

Wesley gets off the bar and moves to hold his father’s hand. Rosa is trying very hard not to profile three eight-year-old children, but Stephen’s the whiny one, Sonia’s the suck-up, and Wesley… Wesley is trouble waiting to happen.

“Agent Diaz,” the lead Washington agent says, and she realizes it probably isn’t for the first time. “I have the itinerary for you.”

Rosa takes the page and scans it quickly. They have a single destination for the entire day, but their time at that destination is planned down to the minute.

Jake looks over her shoulder. “Coney Island?” he says.

* * *

Coney Island. Coney _fucking_ Island.

Rosa thinks it must be a mighty act of heroism for any parents of triplets to visit the place, let alone the First Family. She also thinks she could do with another twelve agents, ideally ones who can outpace three excited eight-year-olds who are currently squabbling about which roller coaster to visit first.

“No roller coasters until after ten,” President Knope says. “I don’t want any of you puking breakfast.” Funnily enough this seems to be directed more at her husband than at the kids.

Even as dressed down as the family is in jeans and t-shirts, they still garner plenty of recognition. In President Knope’s case, it’s the hair. Vibrant blonde shot through with the right amount of gray to look elegant instead of skunk-esque (Jake took to dyeing his after she mentioned skunks to him); it’s eye-catching and then she has the sort of face that people remember.

Plus with four Secret Service agents openly escorting them through the crowds, they stand out like a sore thumb. A thumb so sore that it’s gone black and is wearing sunglasses.

“Peralta, take those _off_.”

Jake slides them down his nose, looks over the top of them at her, and then relents and tucks them into his pocket.

“We need games,” says—she can’t help thinking of him as “Mr. Knope” for some reason. “Skee-ball. Or those clowns with the balls.” He grabs Wesley’s shoulder right as the kid is about to dart off into the crowd and be lost forever, possibly to be made into potstickers and eaten by tourists.

Jake and Charles snicker over “those clowns with the balls”.

Amy, being very firmly Amy, has a map of the area they’re currently in, cross-referenced with President Knope’s intended itinerary. Her internal GPS is leading them out of the main bustle toward where, Rosa assumes, those clowns with the balls can be found.

All three kids are very aware that they’re being fobbed off with clowns instead of coasters. Wesley keeps checking his watch. No, it’s one of those fitness things, which means he has a cell phone, which—well, it’s probably not the worst idea for the President’s kids to have phones. Rosa doesn’t have one of those fitness things; her idea of a workout is to run until she gets bored and maybe take a bite out of one of the donuts she picks up to take back to the office. (She’s pretty sure Scully’s onto her, though; once it was a jelly drip on her jacket and another time it was powdered sugar on her nose. Anyone but Scully and Hitchcock would’ve assumed _cocaine_ over _stealthily bitten donut sugar_ , but hey, everyone has their specialties.)

Sonia feeds the Ping-Pong balls into the clown’s mouth as its head turns from side to side. Creepy-ass shit, but the kid has a real eye for it. She wins a tall stuffed giraffe, which she solemnly gives into Charles’s custody, having correctly pegged him as still being a sucker for a little kid’s smile even with Nikolaj in pre-pre-pre-law, or whatever.

Stephen wins nothing, and sulks.

They move on to skee-ball. Jake gamely tries to show the kids how to play and fucks it up completely. Wesley checks the time, lip pouting out a little further, and intentionally loses as fast as possible in hopes of moving on. Sonia wins a garishly blue teddy bear, which she generously gives to Charles.

Stephen wins nothing, and sulks.

The next game is those shitty air rifles with the bad scopes. Wesley perks up a little at this and actually manages to fumble his way to an inflatable squeaky hammer, which he immediately blows up, his little-boy cheeks puffing out like a frog’s with the effort.

“Oh, maybe we should leave that for later,” Amy says, looking worried.

Wesley ignores her and bops Jake in the kneecap. Jake feigns extreme pain, much to Wesley’s delight. Excellent. He’s a tiny sadist.

Sonia is having more trouble with this game than the others. Rosa drops her watchful stance and goes to help her.

“See how that last shot missed a little bit to the left?”

“Uh-huh?” Sonia says.

“The gun scope is off-center. Line it up, then move your aim just a little bit to the right.”

Sonia aims, shoots, and ends up winning herself a plush monkey almost as big as she is. Charles takes one look at it and starts shaking his head. Rosa arranges it on his back, arms clasped around his neck.

“Aren’t you worried this will hinder my movement in a tactical situation?” Charles asks.

“No more than I worry about you hindering your _own_ movement in a tactical situation.”

Stephen wins nothing, and sulks.

Wesley, now being one-nil to his brother, merrily ignores the fact that he’s also one-three to his sister, and starts outlining in great detail just how stupid Stephen is.

 _Shit_ , Rosa thinks. She’s trained in hostage situations, bodyguarding, and can think of twelve ways she could kill the kid with what’s handy (four of them involve the inflatable hammer), but sibling snark she does _not_ do.

Fortunately, First Gentleman Ben Knope—Wyatt—whatever steps in, separating the pair with the ease of years of practice. He doesn’t look frazzled, though. He actually looks happy.

“Is everything all right, Agent Diaz?”

“Yessir. I was just observing your calm negotiation of a potentially hostile situation.

He laughs. “Please, call me Ben. I know we’re not exactly incognito—” he glances at his wife, who’s signing a copy of her autobiography (who the actual _fuck_ brings Presidential autobiographies to an amusement park?) “—but we don’t have to be perfectly formal.”

Rosa nods. “Sure. And I’m Rosa.” She re-introduces the other three, this time by first name. Madam President Leslie Knope finishes her impromptu book-signing and rejoins them just in time to insist they all call her Leslie.”

“Are you sure, ma’am?” Amy asks, like it’s some kind of trap and she’s going to get demoted for breaching government etiquette.

Leslie nods. “If you’re more comfortable with ma’am, though, I’ll take it. Just as long as I know you mean me when you’re yelling to duck because there’s a sniper.”

Amy flushes, does a full 360° scan of, apparently, the clouds, and then calls Leslie by her first name five times in the next two minutes to make up for lost time.

* * *

Ten o’clock rolls around just in time to keep Rosa from finding a trash can large enough to stuff Wesley into, and they’re lining up at the Cyclone. One of the ride attendants recognizes Leslie and hustles them all to the front of the line. Stephen and Ben opt to stay on the ground. Toybearer Charles volunteers to remain with them. It’s not the one-to-one ratio Rosa would have preferred, but it still isn’t even when they’re all together.

As they’re ushered into the car—Wesley and Sonia, Amy and Leslie, Jake and Rosa in back—Rosa realizes this isn’t so bad. She would’ve _liked_ a larger security detail. She would’ve _liked_ a one-to-one detail, or better yet two-to-one. But the kids have gone from looking at her team like, well, bodyguards, to looking at them like (moderately eccentric) aunts and uncles or something. From what she knows about Pres— _Leslie’s_ hometown life before her new job took her to D.C., the kids are probably used to eccentric.

It’s not always safe for agents’ charges to be so comfortable. Comfort leads to complacency leads to trouble. But, as the car begins to trundle up to the top of the first steep online, Rosa’s okay with the state of affairs.

Then the car plummets, and Rosa focuses on clenching her back teeth so that she doesn’t turn her President’s blonde hair green.

* * *

Wesley is a lot more tolerable once he’s started getting his way, especially after a couple more coaster rides of varying degrees of nausea-inducing height. Sonia’s having a ball, mostly due to being out and about with her parents without anything silly like her mother’s job getting in the way. Even Stephen perks up a bit when Amy demonstrates her tactical driving skills (at which she is quite terrifying) on the dodgem cars.

Ben and Leslie spend every chance they get holding hands.

Lunchtime rolls around faster than expected. Charles has a conniption over the available food and begrudgingly eats one corn dog. The kids stuff their faces with hotdogs, soda, and fries. Ben and Leslie share nachos. Jake and Amy also attempt to share nachos, but Jake is an unashamed cheese hog and Amy ends up getting a burrito instead. Rosa finds the single chicken Caesar salad available for sale in the vicinity and upsets Charles by eating it in front of him.

They eat surrounded by strangers, most of whom nonetheless recognize Leslie, and they still manage to eat in relative peace. Rosa sees the guy from earlier reading Leslie’s autobiography on her way back to the table from foraging for food; he’s scarfing down a sandwich and she thinks maybe he’s an employee of the park on break. That would make more sense than a tourist wandering around with a hefty hardcover.

Leslie enforces another period of quiet time after the meal. Not even Wesley objects; he looks ready to slip into a food coma. Charles rearranges his mountain of plush and takes point on their way to the carousel, the giraffe’s head bobbing a good foot above his own making an easy beacon to follow. Sonia is holding his hand. Stephen is holding Amy’s. Ben is holding Leslie’s. Wesley is the tiny sadist who walks by himself. Jake offers his hand to Rosa, who smacks the back of it.

Stephen sits out of the carousel ride. Charles is about to step back into his previous minder role when Sonia starts dragging him to the horse beside her, stuffed toy menagerie and all. Wesley’s on a tiger behind them. Ben sits with Stephen on a bench near the ride, and Rosa decides she can skip this one and parks herself beside them.

“You don’t even like the carousel, kiddo?” she asks.

Stephen shakes his head. “I don’t like being off the ground.” His voice is soft but his words are very definite. “It makes my tummy wobbly.”

Rosa watches the slowly revolving array of animals and carriages, not even the sort that move up and down on their poles, and opts not to comment. She’s pretty sure Wesley will have that covered.

Besides, Stephen’s happy. He’s quiet and all, but he’s clearly enjoying just being out with his folks in the patchy sunshine, sitting with his dad and watching his mom pretend to be menaced by Wesley’s tiger. It’s a damn miracle the paparazzi haven’t descended like crows yet. This is the sort of thing where half of them would rave about how precious time with family is, and the other half denigrate Leslie for daring to do anything that doesn’t involve politics for more than five minutes.

They go from the carousel to the mirror maze, which Stephen is fantastic at (Rosa spots his hand hovering by, but not touching, the left-hand wall at all times). Sonia and Charles get lost and Jake winds up sending the attendant in after them. Wesley refuses to even go in, mumbling something about Bloody Mary.

Rosa can’t _wait_ to get him to the haunted house.

From the mirror maze to face painting; all three triplets come away as tigers after Leslie berates the face-painter about gender essentialism when she tries to insist Sonia be a butterfly instead. Leslie herself gets a fake US flag tattoo on her cheek, and Ben gets the butterfly makeover. Then it simply won’t do for their escorts to go around unadorned. Jake makes the mistake of letting the kids pick and comes away as a clown. Charles is a cat. Amy is another cat and rocks the look far better than Charles does. Rosa opts for a creepy green witch face, because Bloody Mary isn’t on the list of choices.

“It’s not fun to scare little kids,” Amy whispers to her as they start walking to their next destination.

“Sure it is. It’s hilarious.”

“You’re talking about the _President’s son_.”

“That doesn’t mean he can’t be a little cretin.”

* * *

They hit up more of the big rides after a while of just walking off their food: more rollercoasters; one of the giant pirate ship swings that has a nice view at the apex of its arc (as long as one’s looking and not intently watching their lap, hoping not to recycle their salad); a handful of smaller attractions. Not, to Rosa’s disappointment, the haunted house; it’s closed for renovations.

“Maybe someone _died_ in there,” she murmurs to Wesley, who eyes her distrustfully from behind his cotton candy.

As the day draws to a close, they find themselves at the Ferris Wheel.

“You going on this one, kiddo?” Rosa asks Stephen, prepared to sit out with him if he isn’t. This is the kind of thing Ben and Leslie should get to ride together, maybe sneak a kiss at the top as they look out into the slowly encroaching sunset, even if Wesley’s the sort of kid to make barfing noises at any sign of affection between his parents.

“I—yeah, sure, I will.”

And his hand sneaks into hers.

The two of them take one four-person car to themselves. Ben, Leslie, Amy, and Jake get into the next one, leaving Charles with both Wesley and Sonia. (And Sonia’s prizes.) It doesn’t seem like the greatest arrangement, and Rosa’s tempted to ask the attendant to let Amy squish in with the menagerie, but before she can they’re moving.

Stephen looks firmly at his feet as the wheel turns its great slow arc. Rosa gives his hand a squeeze. She’s got her own eyes locked on the side of his head, because he’s sitting still as stone and she doesn’t have to worry about getting motion sickness if she’s staring at a fixed point. Below them (behind them?) she can hear Ben and Leslie conversing quietly, and Amy and Jake murmuring just as softly. It’s almost a relief to hear Wesley shrieking with glee as they’re carried up into the air.

Sensitive to the identities of his passengers, the attendant stops the wheel with the Presidential car at the very top. Rosa looks up and sees Ben and Leslie kissing. Amy snaps a photo and then Jake leans in and—okay, yuck, she doesn’t want to watch a cat and a clown make out. Wesley is attempting to rock the third car but since he’s a weedy eight-year-old and the car has Charles Boyle in it, it isn’t going far.

Rosa looks down—into the barrel of a gun.

“No guns,” Leslie’s fanboy says as Rosa moves to draw her own weapon. He drops something down into the guts of the ride, and Rosa distantly hears it land, wedging itself between gears. She’s quite certain that it’s a certain hardcover book, possibly with a personalized dedication. “Unbuckle the boy and lower him down, or I start shooting.”

“Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts,” Rosa says.

The gunman looks bewildered. “What?”

“Mutilated monkey meat.”

“Lady, listen—”

“Chopped up baby parakeet.”

“ _Shut up_!”

But it’s he who shuts up, _very_ abruptly, as Stephen’s stomach registers Rosa's words and he leans over the side of the car with a loud tiger growl, puking up two hotdogs, a bunch of fries, a large soda, and some barely digested popcorn straight into the gunman’s mouth.

* * *

Even without a single shot fired, there’s a mountain of incident paperwork. The bright side is, Leslie loves filling things out in triplicate. Ben’s shaky but grateful that everyone’s alive. The kids are only a little mad that their day out got cut short, but when Jake and Amy and Charles take them away to tour the office while the paperwork gets done (which Amy seems sad about), it’s even less of an issue.

Rosa can hear frequent barfing noises as they recount the story to anyone and everyone who crosses their paths. She’s honestly not sure whether it’s the kids or Jake making them.

“Would he really have shot anyone?” Ben asks.

Rosa looks at him straight in the eye. “First Gentleman Ben Wyatt, _nobody_ gets shot on my watch. If plan A hadn’t worked, which it did, I had a plan B.”

“What was plan B?”

Rosa makes a very convincing barfing noise of her own.

“The tactical approach,” Leslie says, grinning.

* * *

Paperwork expedited by Leslie’s mere presence means that they’re all back at JFK by nine. Charles carries a sleeping Sonia and her menagerie into the lounge. He apparently still feels bad that Leslie’s odd fanboy was using the giraffe’s height to not lose them in the crowd, despite frequent reassurances that it’s not his fault.

Wesley’s blinky-eyed as well. The last thing he says before resting his head on his father’s shoulder and dozing off is, “You were badass, bro.”

Stephen grins. He’s sitting beside Rosa, both of them chewing gum, because the taste of recycled hotdogs-fries-soda-popcorn and Caesar-salad-with-as-it-transpires-undercooked-chicken doesn’t go away all that easily.

“Hey, Rosa?”

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Will you teach me the whole gopher guts song?”

He’s got that memorized, plus three horror stories to share with his brother if Wesley ever forgets his manners, by the time the Washington agents are debriefed on the situation by Amy. Jake’s back at the field office double-checking the paperwork, because after eight recaps of a story rife with fake puke sounds, he inevitably threw up in someone’s trashcan.

The First Family begin to file onto Air Force One, Sonia now in Leslie’s arms, one of the Washington agents carrying the toys. Wesley’s squeaky hammer droops from his hand; Rosa suspects nobody will retrieve it if he drops it.

Stephen is last, and turns to wave goodbye as he goes. Rosa waves back, feeling a wide smile stretch her cheeks. He’s definitely not sulking any more, and why should he?

He did, after all, have the biggest win of all.

 


End file.
